Retail sales in December last year grew 7% over the pre-pandemic levels of the same period in 2019, but the pace dropped towards the last week of the month due to the third COVID wave, the Retailers Association of India (RAI) said.
In its latest retail business survey, RAI said the sector witnessed 26% growth last month from a year earlier..
“Retail business was on a steady growth trajectory during most of December, however, the pace of growth was seen dropping off significantly towards the last week of December due to the fresh sets of curbs imposed in most parts of the country owing to the third wave of the pandemic,” RAI CEO Kumar Rajagopalan said in a statement. The impact can be seen at the category level, with the beauty, wellness and personal care segment dipping 7%, compared with December 2019 sales, RAI said. It also said it had appealed to the Centre to instruct States to refrain from imposing curbs based on positivity rate and consider hospitalisations as the criteria to determine restrictions instead, as most of the population is vaccinated.
